


After

by Yagi



Category: CyberSix
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21658759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yagi/pseuds/Yagi
Summary: It starts at the end of the last episode, but I have no idea where it's headed as of yet. Guess we'll all have to wait and see together!
Relationships: Lucas Amato/CyberSix | Adrian Seidelman
Kudos: 14





	1. Ch. 1

Lucas sat alone at the table he usually shared with Adrian, lost in his thoughts, his memories of the man who had become his best friend and the woman who had come to own his heart. Thanks to Lori he now knew they were one and the same. The news had surprised him only a little; in the back of his mind he had suspected as much for some time, but he'd kept telling himself it couldn't be. Adrian was a man (a fact which hadn't stopped Lucas from developing a crush on his fellow teacher. He had even been forward enough to invite Adrian to see a romance movie once, though his advances had been rejected.) while Cybersix was all woman. Now it made sense why Adrian had worn his clothes a couple of sizes too big.  
It made sense why his friend was so secretive and distant. The coincidences all fit: how they had come into his life around the same time, the fact they were both fair-skinned, with short black hair and dark, soulful eyes, how Adrian seemed to have such strong opinions regarding Cybersix, the time Lori had seen her in Adrian's apartment…. He must have had blinders on to deny it to himself that they were the same person in the face of all that evidence.

And now they were both gone. Cybersix had sacrificed herself to do away with Von Reichter once and for all. He and Lori had seen the explosion for themselves- nobody could have escaped a fireball that size. Now, as Lucas held Adrian's large, round glasses, turning them this way and that in his hands, watching the reflections on the lenses, he reflected on his feelings for them. (It was so hard to keep up with pronouns now! He briefly mused on how that confusion may have kept him from admitting to himself they were the same person sooner.) The two most important people in his life were one… and all he had to remember them by was this pair of glasses.

He pushed away from the table and left the cafe without a word. He didn't feel like going home yet; the memories were as strong there as in the cafe. He started walking with no destination in mind, just trying to clear his head. Maybe he would end up in a bar again, drowning his sorrows in cheap whisky as he had the night before.

The sun dipped slowly below the horizon, bathing the city in darkness. Lucas had been walking aimlessly for more than an hour, until he felt his tired legs might give out from underneath him. Only then did he bother to actually take in his surroundings, and when he did he felt sorry he had. This was one of the seedier neighborhoods in Meridiana, on the poor side of town. He knew the area well; it was where Adrian had lived. Lucas had stopped right in front of his friend's apartment building, and though he told himself he wasn't going to look, he found his eyes wandering up to Adrian's top-floor window.

The lights were on.

Tired, heavy legs nonetheless broke into a run and didn't stop until they had ascended the building's main staircase all the way to the top. His legs had turned to rubber and his breathing was so hard he thought his chest would burst, but he didn't stop- couldn't stop. Finding the door locked, he began pounding on it hard enough that neighbors poked their heads out their doors to see what all the ruckus was about.

"Adrian!" he shouted breathlessly. "Adrian, are you in there? Adrian!"

There was no reply from inside.

"Adrian!" he tried again until his knuckles bled and one of the neighbors threatened to call the police. "You don't understand. My friend could be badly hurt in there. I'm just worried about him. I just- Yeah, go ahead and call the police. Tell them we need to do a welfare check."

The police tried knocking as well, once they had arrived, but to no avail.

"Open it," Officer Enrique said to the landlord, who unlocked the door with his own emergency copy of the key. "Ok, Mr. Seidelman, we're coming in. Don't be alarmed."

The policemen entered the small apartment cautiously. It took only a few moments for them to find what they were looking for.

Lucas overheard the radioed request, "We need an ambulance out here, STAT! We got a young woman here, early to mid twenties, second degree burns on about half of her body. Pulse is weak and breathing shallow. She's unconscious."

Impulsively, Lucas ignored the instructions he'd been given to stay in the hall and stepped into the apartment to survey the described damage. Her costume was tattered and melted in some places, and much of her exposed skin was burnt and blistered, but it was her.

"Funniest thing," the other officer said, "there's no sign of fire in the apartment. Looks like someone brought her here after she got burnt instead of taking her to a hospital. But who would do that, and why?"

"With any luck, she'll rally and pull through, and she'll be able to tell us herself soon enough."

"No sign of this Adrian Seidelman guy. Think he might be the one responsible for this?"

"No," Lucas interrupted. *Adrian's a good person. He would never even hurt a fly."

"So your friend is missing?" Enrique said, speaking up a bit to be heard over the approaching sirens. "If you can find us a picture we can get the word out, see if we can locate him. In the meantime, you wouldn't happen to know this woman's name, by chance?"

Lucas nodded. "Yeah. Her name is Cybersix. She's the one who's been fighting off all those monsters that have been attacking the city lately. I'm pretty sure she got like this stopping that island that was gonna destroy the city."

"So do you think your friend Mr. Seidelman might have been the one to bring her here? Why wouldn't he just take her to the hospital?"

"Because she's not human," Lucas said. "I-I know she looks human, but she's not. She's… something else."

The paramedics arrived and quickly began trying to stabilize her enough to make it back to the hospital.

"Miss? Miss? Can you hear me?" one of them said as she manually opened the Cyber's eyes and shone a light in. "Pupils are equal and reactive. Miss? What's her name?"

"Cybersix," Enrique reported. "And apparently she's not as human as she looks, so use caution."


	2. Ch. 2

The doctors didn't know what to do with her. If she wasn't even human, how would they know what medications and procedures would be effective or even safe for her? As such, the only treatments she had received thus far were cold compresses. They didn't even dare give her something for pain until they knew what they were dealing with. Her name, Cybersix, suggested some sort of cybernetic technology- an explanation also hinted at by the crackling green energy that danced across her skin- but she was clearly not an android. Unfortunately (or perhaps mercifully, given the lack of painkillers) she had yet to wake up to tell them herself.

Per hospital policy only family members were allowed to visit patients in the burn unit, but Lucas pleaded his case for being the closest thing to family she had. (Aside from a panther, he neglected to mention. Even if he had known where Data 7 was at the moment, it wasn't like they'd let the big cat in, anyway.) To his surprise, they agreed to give him half an hour- thirty precious minutes. He wanted every last one.

"Hey," he said as he entered, as if expecting the unconscious woman to sit up and answer. "I woulda brought you something from the gift shop, but it was closed. Maybe next time, eh?"

Lucas lovingly stroked her long bangs back from her face and leaned over the bed rail to kiss her lightly on the forehead. Her skin felt unpleasantly clammy to the touch. The paramedics had cut away what was left of her tattered costume and now she lay, dressed only in a paper gown, on an uncomfortable-looking adjustable hospital bed. An assortment of angry red burns and blisters stood out against her fair complexion, but the thing that alarmed him the most was the bright green energy current which crackled and arced across her skin. He had seen that before, and he knew what it meant; she needed one of those glowing green vials as soon as possible. He wasn't even sure where to find one without taking on one of those big green-skinned brutes, and he wasn't sure what his chances were against one as a normal (if somewhat out of shape) human being, but he was willing to try if it might save Cybersix's life.

There were still so many questions in the back of his mind over this entire situation. How had Cybersix gotten back to Adrian's apartment? How long had she been lying there before he came? Where was Data 7? Did he need medical attention as well? And if so, where could he take a panther for treatment? Lucas thought the best place to start looking for clues to this mystery was back at Adrian's place. Fortunately the landlord recognized him and was willing to unlock the door one more time.

The first thing Lucas noticed as he stepped inside was that the window was wide open. Had Cybersix left it open when she went to confront her creator? Had she somehow managed to make it back to the apartment on her own and climb back in? He crossed the room to close the sash, and slid the lock into place to help ensure no one else would climb in.

He found Adrian's keys lying on a table near the bed and pocketed them so he wouldn't have to bother the landlord again if he had to return. There was a small, plain wooden box sitting nearby, and despite having just been in the apartment hours before, He couldn't say for sure whether it had been there at the time. He had been too focused on the injured Cybersix to take inventory of the apartment's contents. But the moment he opened the box he knew for sure it was a new addition, for it contained a glowing green vial. The phone on the table rang, startling Lucas so that he slammed the box shut again before picking up the receiver.

"Um, hello? Adrian Seidelman's residence," he answered.

"Why'd you let them take her to a human hospital, dumbass?" asked the voice on the other end. "I had it."

"Who is this?"

"What if they put two and two together and figure out who Adrian really is? Then what will she do?"

"Well, what was I supposed to do? Leave her here alone to die?"

"You deaf, too?" the voice sassed. "I said I had it."

""How was I supposed to know who they'd find when they got in here? This is Adrian's apartment. Excuse me for thinking he might just have been in here."

The voice sighed, exasperated. "Just go give her the vial, dumbass. She'll die without it."

"I know that… dumbass," Lucas snapped back. "What about Data 7? Is he still alive?"

"I don't know yet," the voice said. "I'm going back to look for him in the morning."

"I can go with you. Just tell me who you are and-"

Lucas found himself talking to a dial tone, and slammed the receiver down angrily.

His eyes returned to the box on the table. Whoever that was on the phone seemed to want to help, and they had given him the vial. At least for now it seemed he had no other choice but to trust them.


	3. Ch. 3

Lucas returned to the hospital the next morning a man on a mission, carrying the box containing the vial in his pocket. He didn't let on to the doctors and nurses what he had or what he planned to do with it, for fear they would try to stop him from administering the needed sustenance.

"Hey," he said in a conspiratorial whisper as he entered the room. "I brought something for you that I think is gonna help." He slipped the box out of his pocket and held it in front of his body, with his back to the door, to hide it behind his bulk as he opened it. The vial glowed softly, giving her face an eerie green cast. "Just gotta find a way to get this into you."

Ignorant of the fact she lived on green goop instead of human food, the nurse had inserted a feeding tube in her nose at some point after he'd left for the night. That was where Lucas saw his chance. After closing the door, he added the contents of the vial and waited anxiously as it made its way through the tube. He had never been a very religious man, but he was ready to bargain with God himself if it would save her life.

There was the briefest of knocks on the door before a nurse entered.

"Sorry to interrupt. I just need to check-" her eyes grew wide as she took sight of the glowing green liquid creeping through the tube. "What did you do?"

Lucas held up his hands as if the woman were going to strike him. "I-it's not how it looks, I swear! I was helping!"

The nurse rushed over and quickly began to check on her patient's vitals to make sure the man hadn't killed her with that… whatever it was he had fed her. It took her a few moments to notice the bright green energy had ceased to crackle and arc over Cybersix's skin.

"She does seem to have improved," the nurse conceded. "What was it that you gave her?"

Even as Lucas struggled for an answer, a small sound could be heard coming from the bed's occupant. He was at her bedside again in an instant, taking her small, delicate hand in his own.

"Hey," he said again, now that he was pretty sure she could hear him. "You had me worried for a few days there. I thought you were…" He couldn't even bring himself to finish the sentence.

"Lucas?" Her voice was soft, barely above a whisper. "I-I'm… alive?"

Lucas was beaming, and squeezed her hand gently. "Yeah."

"You're in the hospital, Miss. You have extensive burns, but we won't be able to do much to treat you unless you tell us exactly what we're dealing with here," the nurse said.

"Hospital?" Cybersix repeated. "I can't stay here. I'm-"

"We know. But if you'll tell us more about yourself we'll be better able to treat you."

"I can take care of myself," she said. "I always do."

"But you haven't been hurt this badly before," Lucas pointed out.

The nurse took that opportunity to ask, "Can you rate your pain level on a scale of one to ten?"

"I'll survive it."

"That wasn't the question."

"Just let me go home."

Cybersix tried to get up... and immediately regretted it as she sank back onto the bed with a sharp hiss of pain.

The nurse raised an eyebrow at her, and reluctantly she replied, "Seven."

"And what do you usually take for pain when you're taking care of yourself at home?"

"Nothing, if I can help it."

"Let me rephrase that: do you know whether painkillers meant for ordinary humans work on your physiology?"

Cybersix sighed. "They should."

"And do you have any allergies we need to know about?"

"Not that I know of."

"If I bring you something for pain, will you take it?"

"... Probably not "

"Will you promise me you'll call the nurses' desk if you change your mind on that?"

"I wouldn't hold your breath."

"The doctor should be in to see you in just a bit," the long-suffering nurse said before leaving the room.

Lucas had to ask, "What was that all about?"

"You shouldn't have brought me here."

"I'm trying to save a life that's become very precious to me."

"But I'm not-"

"Not human? Doesn't matter," he said, caressing her face. "I've fallen in love with you."

He leaned in to kiss her lips, but just as before, she pulled away. He was starting to wonder if his breath stank or something.

"What about Data 7?" she asked. "Is he…"

"We don't know yet."

"We?"

"You have an anonymous benefactor," Lucas said. "I don't know who it is, but they've been looking out for you. That's who got me the vial I just gave you, and they said they'd go look for him again this morning. I assume they'll let me know if they find him."

She went quiet for a moment as she went over the short list of possibilities in her mind. How many people even knew about her need for sustenance, much less where to find it?

"Doesn't matter," she said. "No steady supply; I'm dead anyway."

Now that was something Lucas hadn't thought of. With her creator (presumably) gone, the formula would be lost, the supply limited to whatever had been produced prior to his death. But Lucas wasn't ready to accept that for an answer. He had lost her once; he wasn't about to lose her again.

"I'll figure it out, even if I have to make the stuff myself somehow."


End file.
